There's been a fair amount of talk here, recently, about how important it is to some people that their character is inviolate ... that nobody else can get inside of the skin, and make things happen.  A fair amount of hyperbole has been employed, indicating that any other course will be the downfall of western civilization, and so on and so forth ... but in the end, the answer always seems to come down to "I don't want my character to be vulnerable!  It makes me feel very uncomfortable."

To which I can only reply "Okay ... I felt uncomfortable the first time too.  You won't get over that discomfort by avoiding the situation."  Like taking the training wheels off your bike, or opening your eyes underwater, surrendering some control over your character is a scary step that opens up spectacular new horizons.

When your character is inviolable you cannot defend it, any more than you can defend the stars.  There is no adversity against which it needs defending.  Nobody can possibly harm the soul of the character in any way, and so you (the player) cannot stand up for the soul of the character in any way.  That is why you find so many pimply teens who will eagerly explain their character's Staff of the Arch-Uber-Hyper-Magi, but who cannot for the life of them tell you who the character loves, or what he believes.  Quite simply, they worked for the Staff.  They, the players, were involved and invested in gaining and defending it.  They didn't work for the character's loves or beliefs ... and so they aren't invested.  They do not care, any more than they care about his height or his hair color or any other thing that they get for free.

By comparison, I can tell you volumes about what every one of my Capes characters believes, and who they love, and why they do what they do ... because I've had to fight tooth and nail to defend my assertion that they think that way.  The other players, my worthy and beloved adversaries, have given me an incomparable opportunity:  they have let me work to define my character.  They have made me fight to prove that Zak is hopeful, they have made me defend the claim that Vanessa is heartless, they have made me prove that Gangbuster will never give in.  And because I have worked at these things, they are more real to me.  They are not just words on paper, or notions in my head, they are the actual outcomes of my actual efforts, tested and solid.

This is not just a matter of preference.  I reject the argument that people who want to avoid ever facing this discomfort are just as good as those who embrace it.  They're not.  Knowing that you can handle playing a vulnerable character expands your horizons.  You get to do all the things you did back when you thought you were too weak to defend your character, and a whole bunch of new things as well.  You get to do more.  Learning to do this makes you a better player.

I am saddened when I see people elevate their discomfort and, yes, fear to the level of a philosophy.  It is an elaborate defense mechanism, and the only thing it does is to prevent them from growing and developing as people and as gamers. 

The inviolable character is like Dumbo's magic feather, Linus's security blanket.  It is the magic token people count on to keep them safe, because they don't believe they have the power to be safe themselves.  It is the mark of someone who has yet to come to grips with how strong he or she can be.  It is the mark of a child.  I firmly believe that gamers benefit when they summon their courage and face the world without it.

I know that what I am going to add will astound most of you - and will probably astonish Tony the most.

I couldn't disagree more with the "opinion" stated in the first post on this thread.

Long before Capes I have been familiar with the type of person who's method of teaching someone to swim is to throw them into the ocean.  People who think they know what's best for everyone else.  People who think that if it's right for them, it's right for everyone.  Truthfully, those people sicken me a little.

These people may have been exposed to brutal disillusionment at some point in their past.  Perhaps they have become too afraid to enjoy good escapist fun because when they return to real life, they fear that they will be too defenseless to endure it.

At the root of it, I do think fear is somehow involved.  No, not my fear, the fear at the root of those that try to coerce and bully people who make different choices than they do.  The fear that maybe, just maybe, one is not better than everyone else, merely different.

People who think that there is only one right way to be, that it is more important to conform to this assumed standard than it is to have fun in a game - well, it's clear to me - and hopefully others - that something is sadly amiss when someone tries to push a philosophical agenda and devalues the main goal we have for playing a game - to have fun.

I am not going to tell anyone how to enjoy their life, or how best to live it.  I can tell you what works best for me, but I cannot tell you what works best for you.  For example, I might say that I find belief in the supernatural including theism (Christianity, Judaism, Muslim, etc) to be irrational, and that I think that rational behavior has a better chance long term from affording one success and happiness in life.

I may even be able to prove that believing in god is irrational.  But what I cannot do is prove that one is wrong for doing so.  No one can.

There's a spectrum that runs from tolerant/compassionate to intolerant/judgemental.  Most people tend to cluster near one end or another.

Those that cluster near intolerant/judgmental seem to me to be defective and/or damaged human beings.  They seem to be broken and/or hurt, and in need of help.

Unfortunately, these same people seem also to be lashing out, coercing and bullying anyone that shines a light onto their symptoms.

Ultimately, that is all that is going on here, I believe.  Anyways that's my opinion.  I think it takes a special kind of openness, a special kind of courage to accept that other people's ways are not our own and that that in and of itself is not wrong.

Again, ultimately, the only relevant questions are, what are your results, and are you happy with them?

Well, the most recent time I played Capes, we permitted each player to fully own their characters, to be the sole author of what their characters thinks, values, chooses.  And we accomplished the goal.  We all had a lot of fun.

I don't know why anyone would find that a bad thing - unless their goal considers the fun we have irrelevant to some other, perhaps less laudable goal that they have for me.

Well, I will choose my own goals.  Don't blame your disappointment on me if my choices are different from the ones you would have me make. Instead, re-examine whether or not it is even valid to try to usurp other people's rights in such a way.

It isn't.

Hey Tony,

I've some thoughts on this.  A lot of which stem from discussions with my wife.  My wife has a lot of problems with Capes, one of them being this issue.  But I think her issue with it is different from that of Sindyr or the other "security blanket" types.  See if she creates a character she percieves as, "heartless" then she is already from that very moment of creation looking forward to the day when the character shows compassion.  So, you see, she's not interested in defending  the "heartless" characteristic of the character, she's interested in finding the moment of compassion.  To her, thowing down the Goal: X displays compassion for Y, feels forced.  She doesn't want to fight it because she's invested in that potential moment of compassion, but she doesn't want it to be forced out of her either.  It's not fear.  It's a sense of akwardness.

For example, in our Dogs game she had no problem with the Stakes being set as, "her character comes to distrust her fellow dogs." Because things were already a little wonky between the Dogs and the town in general seemed to be about disunity and a ton of other little factors that meant for her, "Yes, now is the time this may or may not come to pass."  But the shockingly untimed confrontational way this kind of stuff can come out of the blue in Capes just doesn't work for her.

Now, me, on the other hand.  My character concepts are fixed.  If I percieve my character as being, "a moody bastard" by god that's how he is and nothing will ever change that.  The only way my character is going to change is if another player says, "God damnit, Jesse, it's time your character shows a little sensativity!" and throws out a goal of somekind and yes, I will fight that fucker tooth and nail.  But I'm also cool with losing for two reasons:

1) Nothing in Capes is permanent.  Just because my character, in this situation, at this moment, has a moment of sensativity, doesn't mean he's on a path of permanent change.  It can be written off, by me, as a "moment of weakness."

2) This is exactly how it works in comics.  Character change in comics is always HIGHLY local to the specific situation and rarely sweeping in nature.  There are no "first steps down a longer path" in comics, only flash-in-the-pan moments of revelation.  I never want to pick up a Batman comic and discover that somehow Batman has become a sensative, well adjusted individual who treats his fellow Gotham vigilantes like equals.  But!  If a story is all about how Batman treats Robin badly, then I'll relish the moment when Batman realizes, "Oh god, I've treated Robin so badly and now he's in danger because of it."  So long as Batman goes back to treating Robin badly in the next story or at least a few stories down the line. :)

Jesse

jburneko wrote:
For example, in our Dogs game she had no problem with the Stakes being set as, "her character comes to distrust her fellow dogs." Because things were already a little wonky between the Dogs and the town in general seemed to be about disunity and a ton of other little factors that meant for her, "Yes, now is the time this may or may not come to pass."  But the shockingly untimed confrontational way this kind of stuff can come out of the blue in Capes just doesn't work for her.

Sindyr wrote:
I couldn't disagree more with the "opinion" stated in the first post on this thread.

[cross posted with Tony]

Sindyr, your rant has so absolutely nothing to do with anything Tony just said that I wonder if you even bothered to read what he wrote...if so you clearly fumbled your Reading Comprehension skill check.

Tony is saying the following:

If your character has a strongly held belief, that belief is worth fighting for.
If you, as the player, are never able to fight for that belief, then you, as a player, are never able to demonstrate that your character believes it to be worth fighting for.
Therefore, other players who force you to fight for your beliefs are actually performing a service by allowing you to demonstrate how strongly your character cares about that belief.

Anyone can write "believes violence is never the solution" on their character sheet.  But unless some other player is challenging you to ante up to that belief..."even now?"..."even in THIS situation?"..."What about NOW?" then that character trait is just so much word salad completely lacking meaning or depth.  In most games its the GM whose job it is to provide that level of challenge.  In Capes et.al. any player can take on that role.  

Any basic writing class will tell you that its better to SHOW your character's belief than tell them.  That's what Capes does.  It forces you to show.  It forces you to ante up and put your money where your mouth is.  How far are you the player willing to go to prove that the character believes "violence is never the solution"...This Far?  Will you go That far?  

This has nothing to do with bullying or any other such nonsense.  Its what any good GM should be doing anyway. That's the GMs job...create conflicts that the player's care about. To do that you find out what the player cares most about their character and then you try to take that away.  That's called good GMing.

Not doing that is just creating pages of rambling, non dramatically interesting narrative.  At best its masturbatory interactive day dreaming.  At worst its pissing around with zilchplay.  Either way it might be fun...but its not quality roleplaying.  And no...that's not being judgemental in the sense of intolerant.  Its being judgemental in the sense of discriminating.  Unfortuneatly, certain folks have forgotten that being discriminating is a GOOD thing.

Capes puts some fairly straight jacketed mechanics around these issues. This 1) eliminates the need for a GM, 2) makes the rules as arbitrary (in the true definition of that word as unbiased) as possible, and 3) makes a game with actual strategy to it.   One can debate how effectively these mechanics accomplish this.  One can discuss whether there aren't other better ways of accomplishing it.  But one can't say that its some form of bullying.

Tony's point is that insisting on a security blanket is actually doing YOURSELF a diservice.  Instead of protecting what you care most about your relagating what should be the most important Trait of your character to meaningless divel and obscurity.  Nobody cares about the words written on your character sheet.  What they care about is how you demonstrate those words in actual play.  And the only way you can meaningfully demonstrate those words in actual play is if someone forces you to fight for them.  If noone can force you to fight for them then you can never demonstrate them in a meaningful dramatically interesting fashion.  If you can't demonstrate them in a meaningful dramatically interesting fashion...then they're pointless garbage that no one will care about.

What Capes does differently than most games is that it doesn't let you hide behind the character.  It forces you to defend those beliefs not just by representing how badly your character wants to defend them...but by representing how badly you the player wants to defend them on behalf of your character.  In otherwords, it takes things to the meta level.

Now some people may have a personal preference for defending their character's beliefs from behind the character's own eyes, rather than as a player pulling the character's strings.  I think that's where folks find the rules the most jarring...it isn't my character Dudley DoGooder who fights for his belief that "violence is never the answer"...its me the player who fights for my belief that "Dudley believes violence is never the answer".  Its a mental shift that takes some getting used to.

Here's the kicker though...its ALWAYS me the player who fights for my belief in Dudley's belief...regardless of what game I'm playing from the most strictly actor stance old school RPG to the deepist immersionist LARP.  Its ALWAYS me the player doing the fighting.  Some folks like to fool themselves with such meaningless nonsense as "that's what my character would do" but the reality is characters are fiction, people are real.  Capes doesn't let you hide.  Capes forces one to come face to face with the fact that its you the player fighting for the character not the character fighting for themself.

Ralph,

To be fair, it's possible to threaten or question a character's world philosophy without playing puppet master with the character.  However, when you combine totally external adversity with taboo adversity THEN you have a problem.  Sure, it's easy to "never resort to violence," if rape, torture and murder are off the table.

Jesse

OK, I see that neither of you guys are getting it (or that I am posting in a language significantly different than either of your are reading).  Will try to find some time tomorrow to address that.

Before I do, I will ask that any sincere dicusser re read what I wrote.  I spent a significant amount of time and effort on it.

Frankly, I am wondering if those who, 47 rounds later, claim to still not get it are either suffering from a blind spot and they *can't* get it, or are simplying lying/using debate tactics in a non sincere attempt at college debate, not discussion.

We will see.

I am pretty sure that Tony is probably suffering from one of the 2 issues above, but Valamir - do you not see what I am saying? At all?  Not asking you if you agree with it mind you, just asking if I have completely failed to communicate my position and why I hold that position?

Thanks

TonyLB wrote:

Sindyr wrote:
I couldn't disagree more with the "opinion" stated in the first post on this thread.

Y'know what really made me laugh about that whole post?  You said that ... but then you didn't disagree with anything I said.  Instead you pulled out Standard Diatribe #5, and ran through it with gusto.  And, yeah, I get that you're emotionally invested, but ... see if you were actually disagreeing with me then your counter-argument would make sense in the context of my opinion.

But, hey, let's try a fun and revelatory exercise!  Everyone, pretend that I'd argued one of the following:

• "RPGs are more fun when you play with hot, home-cooked snacks ... but some people are just too afraid to try cooking things at home.  Those people are being silly."
• "Sex is more fun between partners who know and respect each other, but some people let their fear of commitment keep them from discovering that.  Those people are being childish."
• "Capes play works perfectly well without physical violence, but some people fear that if they don't get to lash their players with a cat-o'-nine-tails they won't be able to make a good story.  Those people are clinging to whippings out of fear of the unknown."

... now the fun part.  Go back and read Sindyr's rebuttal.  Isn't that a pointed, passionate rebuttal of whichever position you chose?  Of any position?

Sindyr is running an absolutely generic objection script.  It doesn't object to any particular opinion.  It objects to the concept of having an opinion.  It objects, across the board, to any value judgment on human behavior.  It is a bunch of hot air wrapped around a core message of "Shut up!  You aren't allowed to have an opinion!  Only I am allowed to have an opinion!"

Isn't that a hoot?  It'd be sort of interesting to go back through his objections in other threads, and see how many of them boil down to exactly the same thing.

This one's to Sindyr.

From pretty much day one of you coming to Muse of Fire Forums, you've essentially challenged the fundamentals of Capes gameplay.  You've gotten under the skin of a lot of people here, including myself.  You've done this and generated page after page of debate, comments, and the occasional impassioned speech. 

Thanks!  Makes for great reading.

You've made people uncomfortable by challenging what they think is an excellent system and even way of thinking, enough to speak out and make their point of view heard.  And even though people have made you uncomfortable in the process, enough to get quite vocal, you've come back, again and again, to post more.  Because no matter what, conflict is interesting.  Personal beliefs being tested are interesting.

Don't you see?  Interpersonal conflict regarding personal opinion, personal beliefs, generates interesting dialogue!  And interesting, challenging, maybe even uncomfortable dialogue is FUN.  Otherwise we'd be ecstatic about taking about weather conditions all day, and this entire conflict on the boards wouldn't exist! 

Therefore, when you roleplay, which is dialogue and funny shaped dice (or cards, or nothing) there is fun to be had in challenging your belief structure.  You rattle the cage a little, get out of the comfort zone,  and you have your beliefs survive and thrive.

You're doing this right now.  You talk about avoiding anything having to do with pushing your personal boundaries, yet you keep posting here, where those personal boundaries are getting pushed!  And you're pushing back! 

This is either irony or a breakthrough.  I can't tell which. 

Hello Sindyr,

Let's say there's an activity.  It doesn't matter what it is.  And let's say a person engaged in the activity says that they enjoy doing it.  Let's also say that no outside people are in anyway harmed by this activity.

Okay, now I say, "This activity is a form of illness."

Do you see the difference between these two attempts at counter argument:

Counter Argument 1: "You're not allowed to say this activity is an illness."
Counter Argument 2: "That activity isn't an illness because of reason X, Y and Z."  Where X, Y and Z are none of the things I've already stipulated above.

I think most of use are looking for Counter Argument 2 and you keep giving us Counter Argument 1.

Jesse

Sindyr,

Your argument, no matter how much time you have put into it, boils down to "don't you dare say anything bad about my father's alcoholism because I love him and you're really the one with the problem for being so judgemental of him!"

There are problems and behaviors in this world that one can not simply dance around with bunnies and butterflies, chanting "everybody is just great and we're all so different {love!}". Turtling behind the concept of character inviobility, behind the idea that allowing anyone to alter or have a say about your character can not possibly be any fun and is -- IS -- game-breaking and destructive is one of those problems that has nothing to do with preference and choices.

Yes, some people do not find the vulnerable choice to be fun. No argument. But some people, in fact (given human nature) most people, use that as an excuse. It is an easy out, an easy dodge to avoid something they don't want to have to deal with, not because they know it won't be fun but because they suspect or feel it will not be and thus regardless of whether or not that avoidance is rational or based on honest experience with it. Those are the people Tony is obviously taking issue with.

My kids use a similar trick to this at the dinner table all the time:
~ "Eww. That looks gross. I don't like it."
~ "You haven't even tried any yet. Try some and see if you like it."
~ "No! It's gross and icky! I won't eat ANY because I don't like it!"

Adults get very good milage out of this trick as well, they just tend to hide the poor logic better. So I am sorry if you consider me to be a broken, damaged human being lashing out and in need of help when I make them eat their vegetables and argue their verbal "I don't like it" trickery is nonsense, or that my doing so is the equivalent of "throwing someone who can't swim into the ocean". I call that fucking ridiculous and pretty poor logic to boot.

Now, maybe you can provide a reasoned argument regarding why character inviobility is a good thing in play with specific examples of why it is a good thing, rather than the standard Western "Everybody's OK but judgement is not" hyperbolic argument above, and any attendant defense of that argument (particularly: everyone else simply has to read it a few more times and they will understand its truth).

Because, really, seriously, I AGREE that for some people character-ownership is an important component of the fun and that calling nonsense about their not finding it fun to be narrow-minded. It is the various presented arguments against character-ownership, however, that display not "I do not find that fun" but "I am terrified at the mere suggestion" where I agree fully with Tony's sentiments and statements.

Valamir - do you not see what I am saying? At all?  Not asking you if you agree with it mind you, just asking if I have completely failed to communicate my position and why I hold that position?

Sindyr, I've also kept an eye on all these discussions all this time, and want to give my view on what's happening, and why I think it falls on you to break the cycle.

Both sides have been talking past each other of essentially different things. I guess we're doing this because the whole dialogue started with this fundamental new exciting revelation wrt roleplaying in Capes that we think you don't get. And people stick to explaining that. And what you're arguing may be related, but is not core to that issue, so we're not engaging with discussing that. If you really want more to discuss what you're saying, separate it completely from the original context.

Here, in this thread, I think Tony tried to do this whole discussion a great favor by regrounding it straight to the original issue with a completely fresh start, and even not directly addressing to you (because other peoples need this revelation, too).

Now, in all those almost a dozen threads, many many people (myself included) have tried to disclose this original issue to you, but I've never seen you really take it into consideration. Please, do try to consider it without any preconceptions, try to think what "getting unsafe" could give someone (if not you), and state that you do understand what we're trying to say.

After that you can say "Yes, I agree that getting unsafe has these benefits, but don't you agree that in this situation X, with these factors Y contributing, the bad effects outweigh the benefits", and I'm sure people will discuss with you much more constructively.

OK guys, I think I have found a way to express my position clearly, and it's one that is a lot more general than just relating to Authorship (what Tony spins as a "security blanket") so I have split it off into its own thread:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19614.0

I think you will find within the distilled essence of what has been occuring not just on this thread, but on this forum that has been bothering me.

Thanks.

Over on the thread just mentioned, Sindyr asked a question that is (to my eyes) an attempt to clarify the issues on this thread.  Or maybe it's a rhetorical question and the answer was supposed to be "Oh, no, of course there's no justification for such stuff!"  Whatever.  I'm giving my justification.

Sindyr wrote:
I created an authorship mod. We employed it in our game.  Everyone was happy, and everyone had fun.

If a group of like-minded people want to play a variant of Capes that includes this rule, and if they are relatively certain that playing with this variant will be much more fun than playing without it, then in what way is anyone entitled to fault these players for so doing?  In what way is anyone entitled to claim that their own style of play is in anyway superior to the way my group plays?

Tony,

I also think it is interesting to note that you didn't mention anything really about preferences.  If you can play skillfully with both vulnerable and inviolate characters but prefer inviolate characters, that's not better or worse than preferring the other method of play.  It's just your preference.  However, in order to have a preference you have to acknowledge (and have experienced) both modes of play.  Otherwise your preference is just ignorance.

TonyLB wrote:
Well, I can do a whole bunch of interesting things that you refuse to even attempt.  Whether that makes me a better roleplayer than you is a fascinating and difficult question.

But, really, who cares?  Because there are two cases where I can hold all other factors equal:  Myself before I try to play vulnerable characters and myself after I try it.  If we assume that my skill at playing inviolate characters stays exactly the same (again, a point that might merit debate) then I am a better roleplayer after expanding my horizons than I was before doing so.  I've improved.

So I worry that you're missing a crucial point here:  I'm not saying that, if you cling to the notion of inviolate characters, you'll be an inferior roleplayer when compared with me.  I'm saying that you'll be an inferior roleplayer when compared with what you could be.

Nope.

Someone who can play golf and tennis is, cetera paribus, a better athlete than someone who can only play golf.

Didn't I basically say that already?

Gaerik wrote: However, in order to have a preference you have to acknowledge (and have experienced) both modes of play.  Otherwise your preference is just ignorance.

Sindyr wrote:
But I don't consider someone an inferior sportsman just because he plays fewer games than he could.  Narrowly focused does not equate to inferior, and widely focused doesn't not equate to superior.

TonyLB wrote:
Nope.

Someone who can play golf and tennis is, cetera paribus, a better athlete than someone who can only play golf.

Didn't I basically say that already?

Gaerik wrote:

Sindyr wrote:
But I don't consider someone an inferior sportsman just because he plays fewer games than he could.  Narrowly focused does not equate to inferior, and widely focused doesn't not equate to superior.

Just because you don't consider it to be true, doesn't make it not so.  If I can play every sport you can play at an equal skill level plus 3 more that you can't play at all, then objectively (or as close to objectively as you're going to get) I'm a better athlete than you.

Cross posted with Tony...

Sindyr wrote:
What if the person who plays golf and tennis plays them both badly, and the person who plays only tennis plays incredible well?

Sindyr wrote: Or, more to the point, what if both people can play both games equally well, and the only difference is that one of them enjoys tennis and gold, and the other one, who can play both, only enjoys golf?

Sindyr wrote:
Burning one's hand on a hot stove is not the only way to learn not to do that.

I think we have drifted far of the topic of this thread and are now actually discussion the topic of the other thread - perhaps we should do so over there?

TonyLB wrote:

Sindyr wrote:
What if the person who plays golf and tennis plays them both badly, and the person who plays only tennis plays incredible well?

Cetera paribus is latin for "all other things being equal."  Does that sound like all other things are equal?

Sindyr wrote: Or, more to the point, what if both people can play both games equally well, and the only difference is that one of them enjoys tennis and gold, and the other one, who can play both, only enjoys golf?

Then we're not talking about a person who can play tennis and golf vs. a person who can only play golf, are we?

replying to the questions here:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19614.0
because it is more on topic there.

Thanks

Sindyr wrote:
No we are not.  We are talking about someone who could choose to do something, and doesn't, because its not fun.

Wasn't that always what we were talking about?

Sindyr wrote:
Is someone who can play golf well inferior to some who can play golf *and* tennis well?

The idea presented in this thread was a major breakthrough in my Capes gameplayer. Previous to it the conflicts were boring. "So and so beats up so and so." "So and so extracts information from so and so." It was fun, to be sure, and even when I was playing at that "level."

This last weekend I ran Capes at a convention, and was playing Quentin Quadro, boy genius. My friend Bob (ubergeek2012) was playing Xixtan, a huge, terrifying robot, and I saw that he had a whole lot of debt tokens on Pride and Fear. So what conflict did I play?

Goal: Quentin Quadro terrifies Xixtan.

I sat on a nice pile of story tokens after that, *and* Bob got to "prove" that Xixtan was a huge, unflappable badass. Everyone wins, and it was way better than "Quentin Quadro fights Xixtan."

Thank God for you, Bret. Exactly. A real-life example of what we're talking about: It's more fun this way -- try it!.

My personal experience I keep citing in this discussion involves people (Tony, primarily) doing this to me, and, darn it, I'll cite it again, because the discussion needs more Actual Play:

Sydney wrote: ....in the last two sessions, I've had both my spotlight characters change at least in part against my will. I'd been steering Minerva for a descent into doomed villainy and self-destruction -- and then Tony threw a time-manipulator character at her who tried to steal that destiny, and won. Conversely, I'd been steering Kettridge towards becoming a solid, good guy, and Tony & Eric basically used the mechanics to say, "Really? 'Cause he still seems like a domineering jerk to us," in particular when (Tony? Eric? I forget) put out a Goal for Kettridge, "Tell his superiors the whole truth" -- which meant, by its very introduction into play, that Kettridge was lying by omission about something important, which hadn't been my intent at all -- followed in this most recent session by a flurry of goals like "Kettridge: convince Zak the destruction of his homeworld was for the greater good," "Zak: Prove Kettridge's actions are all part of a selfish conspiracy against the team," and "Kettridge: Convince himself he's telling the truth."

And in each of these cases, with each of these characters, I had a stomach-flipping moment of, "Wait! That's not what my character's like!" For some of the Kettridge conflicts, I actually went so far as to ask what the rules for vetoing the introduction of a conflict were (we never use them). But, in each case, I came to the point where I decided to trust my fellow players and take their suggestions and run with them -- and the result was much, much richer than anything I'd have imagined by myself.

There were even moments where I poured in enough resources to win a couple of these conflicts -- and then deliberately narrated them to leave open the possibility that Kettridge was a traitor, after all. There were also moments where I fought desperately but just didn't have the resources, so someone else got to narrate a crucial turning point for my character. And it was okay. In fact, it was great.

I feel like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix (the first one, obviously), staring at the little kid warping a spoon without touching it and being told, "The important thing is to remember that there is no spoon."

There is no 'my character'. There is only the character I bring to the table for all of us to play with.

Bret wrote:
The idea presented in this thread was a major breakthrough in my Capes gameplayer. Previous to it the conflicts were boring. "So and so beats up so and so." "So and so extracts information from so and so." It was fun, to be sure, and even when I was playing at that "level."

This last weekend I ran Capes at a convention, and was playing Quentin Quadro, boy genius. My friend Bob (ubergeek2012) was playing Xixtan, a huge, terrifying robot, and I saw that he had a whole lot of debt tokens on Pride and Fear. So what conflict did I play?

Goal: Quentin Quadro terrifies Xixtan.

I sat on a nice pile of story tokens after that, *and* Bob got to "prove" that Xixtan was a huge, unflappable badass. Everyone wins, and it was way better than "Quentin Quadro fights Xixtan."

Sydney wrote:
There is no 'my character'. There is only the character I bring to the table for all of us to play with.

Sindyr wrote: quote author=Sindyr link=topic=19597.msg205786#msg205786 date=1145996209
Actually, this is one of my objections to not having the Authorship rule - it makes engaging your other player trivial and no challenge at all.   Too obvious for me.

Hi Sindyr! I'm not sure what you mean by this. What was trivial? This was a pretty big struggle.

To weigh in on the whole thing,  I'm going to combine the concepts here.  The person who learns to play golf and tennis equally well and then decides they prefer golf is a superior person to the one who learns to play golf well and rejects tennis but has only tried it once or twice but hasn't put in the time and effort to truly experience and learn the game thuroughly.

I offer my friend Tyler who is an aethist as an example.  In my mind he is a superior aethist than most aethists because, despite his own displeasure has put in the effort to read: The Bible, The Koran, The Book of Mormon, The Bagahvagita, and a few other religious texts, cover-to-cover.

He is also the superior literary critic because, despite his own displeasure, he has put in the time and effort to read almost every great book ever written no matter how dry and boring and counter to his own tastes.

And more importantly, he has approached all of these with the intent to understand and grasp what makes these things great despite his own distaste for them.  And he has not given up until he has achieved that understanding.  And in some cases his displeasure changed to pleasure because in his effort he had an epiphany moment that altered his preferences.  That moment came only because he struggled through pages and pages and hours and hours of pain and displeasure and discovered that his displeasured stemed not from the work itself but because of an assumption or fault of his own that was holding him back from enjoying what was presented to him.

Do you want to be a healthier roleplayer?  Eat those vegetables you think are disgusting.  Eat them frequently and cooked a variety of ways and soon you may discover you've aquired the taste.  But until you've tried all the dishes and truly examined and experimented with those vegetables, don't tell us you don't like them.

Jesse

It's easy to get you to care about a goal if I am allowed to push your buttons.  Without the authorship rule, all I have to put down is:
Goal: You hero does X, where X is something that inflames you, like, has sex with a man. or cries like a baby, or beats his mother, etc.

It is relatively more difficult to come up with goals that draw in other players to getting engaged if one is denied obvious things like the above.  When you cannot take the easy road of threatening the image of the character they fancy, you are forced into spending more thought on it - what does the player sitting accross from me want?  And how can I dangle that in front of him?

I like that extra required thought.

Oh. Uh... okay. That's cool. Though I actually find that what I'm doing when I'm creating goals like the one I mentioned, or the goal that a totally newbie Capes player put down (Quentin Quadro learns his lesson - totally awesome, since I was playing him as a mad scientist with no sense of consequences) requires some thought.

Sindyr wrote:
It's easy to get you to care about a goal if I am allowed to push your buttons.  Without the authorship rule, all I have to put down is:
Goal: You hero does X, where X is something that inflames you, like, has sex with a man. or cries like a baby, or beats his mother, etc.

you are forced into spending more thought on it - what does the player sitting accross from me want?  And how can I dangle that in front of him?

I like that extra required thought.

jburneko wrote:
To weigh in on the whole thing,  I'm going to combine the concepts here.  The person who learns to play golf and tennis equally well and then decides they prefer golf is a superior person to the one who learns to play golf well and rejects tennis but has only tried it once or twice but hasn't put in the time and effort to truly experience and learn the game thuroughly.

I offer my friend Tyler who is an aethist as an example.  In my mind he is a superior aethist than most aethists because, despite his own displeasure has put in the effort to read: The Bible, The Koran, The Book of Mormon, The Bagahvagita, and a few other religious texts, cover-to-cover.

Do you want to be a healthier roleplayer?  Eat those vegetables you think are disgusting.  Eat them frequently and cooked a variety of ways and soon you may discover you've aquired the taste.  But until you've tried all the dishes and truly examined and experimented with those vegetables, don't tell us you don't like them.Jesse

Sindyr wrote: Besides, I know I like pears.  It makes far more sense to try additional pear dishes that I probably *will* like than to spend time looking for a probably non existant apple dish, and experiencing that horrid apple taste each time.

Sindyr wrote:
Actually, this is one of my objections to not having the Authorship rule - it makes engaging your other player trivial and no challenge at all.   Too obvious for me.

First, a public appeal: Let's please stop talking about pears, golf, and comparative religion -- I understand the value of metaphor and analogy, but I think at this point the analogies have caused us to veer way the heck away from actual incidences of play.

Now, substantively:

Sindyr wrote:

Sydney wrote:
There is no 'my character'. There is only the character I bring to the table for all of us to play with.

The problem is, if there is no 'my character' than there is also no character I care about.

Sydney wrote:

Sindyr wrote:

Sydney wrote:
There is no 'my character'. There is only the character I bring to the table for all of us to play with.

The problem is, if there is no 'my character' than there is also no character I care about.

There isn't? I think I have to be misunderstanding you.

You don't watch movies or read books and care about their characters, which are not under your control?

Vaxalon wrote:
The thing is... I won't win them all, and every time I lose one, the value of that character to me drops a peg.

Vaxalon wrote: Now I understand that the conflicts that challenge that value are not intended to actually damage it.  They're intended to pook it, get me to fight back, and let me win. ...

The thing is... I won't win them all, and every time I lose one, the value of that character to me drops a peg.

I've played Capes a grand total of five times.  Twice with Tony, three times without.

I'm going to leave the two games played with Tony out because Tony's a riot to play with no matter WHAT the game is.  I have no doubt playing with him could make GURPS enjoyable for me.

In the three games I played where Tony wasn't involved, my characters quickly seemed to become flatter, more distant, and out of focus as the game progressed.  Two of those three games were IRC games, though, and that may have had something to do with it, but the same thing happened when I played around the table with my wife, her best friend, and her best friend's daughter.  Everything just seemed to sink into the table.

My characters get defeated on a regular basis.  I'm a GM on a fairly regular basis.  But *I* don't get defeated.

There's a difference.  When the stakes are "Doctor Trinity's spine gets snapped" is a defeat for the character, and one I can relish because Doctor Trinity, as a villain, was always intended to be defeated.  Even if he was a hero, that's still fine, because it gives him the chance to come back from his adversity and triumph in spite of it.  "Doctor Trinity's ego gets crushed" is also a defeat for the character. 

When the stakes are "Doctor Trinity is revealed to be a faker and an idiot" (not "...is made into an idiot") that's a defeat for me.  It's kind of like a retcon.

Do you see the difference?

Vaxalon wrote:
When the stakes are "Doctor Trinity is revealed to be a faker and an idiot" (not "...is made into an idiot") that's a defeat for me.  It's kind of like a retcon.

Do you see the difference?

Vaxalon wrote:
When the stakes are "Doctor Trinity is revealed to be a faker and an idiot" (not "...is made into an idiot") that's a defeat for me.  It's kind of like a retcon.

Jeff, absolutely! And it's very in keeping with comic books.

Fred, I remember reading about the game where you played Doctor Trinity, and that was clearly not satisfying for you, so that's a good example of "people changing my character in ways I didn't agree to can suck."

As I recall, the thing that really annoyed Fred was someone else narrating their character casually snapping Trinity's spine and tossing him into the deepest part of the Pacific. Clearly, that marred Fred's concept of Trinity as a powerful, aloof manipulator.

But -- looking at Sindyr now -- wouldn't the spine-snapping count as "external" adversity and thus be permissible under your Authorship Rule? I can see the clear, bright line in theory between "this is external, it only affects my character from the outside, I don't need to be able to veto it" and "this is internal, it is about how my character feels and thinks and who he is, and I need to have a veto." But in practice, any "external" thing your character truly cares about is going to reflect on who he or she is internally. E.g. if your concept is of a smooth supervillain, and somebody snaps himlike a twig and bodyslams him into the Pacific, well, your concept just took as big a hit as if somebody makes him cry; if your concept is of a supernaturally lucky and charming superhero (Lucky Charm, right?), then losing "Goal: Lucky Charm impresses everybody" is as bad as losing "Goal: Make Lucky Charm snivel and whine."

You don't really even need to have a Capes-style Goal system to see this effect in play. If you have a D&D character, and your concept is "my guy is a cool, brooding, angsty hero," but all the other players at the table think the character, as you portray him, is a whiny dork, then -- guess what -- your character is a whiny dork. If your concept is "my character is charming, smooth, and witty," and none of the other players at the table ever laughs at the jokes you tell through his mouth, then -- guess what -- your character is not witty.

"The character" is not some inviolate concept in your head. "The character" only becomes real when you share it with other people -- and I'm not just talking RPG characters here: It's true of your characters even if you're writing a novel, because the whole point of a novel is to be read by somebody else. Other people's reactions to that character help define who he or she really is, which will never be exactly what you imagined.

And that's a good thing! If your character concept wasn't that great, everyone's lack of enthusiasm tells you so, and you can try to make it better, or try another one. If your character concept was cool but could be even cooler -- and what is perfect when first created? -- then the things everyone else pushes you to do with the character tells you what you could do to realize the full potential of your idea. And when you embrace other people's input, even (especially) the criticisms that are hard for you to take, you can create something far greater than what you could have done on your own.

This is is what I mean by

There is no 'my character'. There is only the character I bring to the table for all of us to play with.

drnuncheon wrote: Except (as has been pointed out in other threads) you can't make anything stick in Capes. So you're perfectly free to take the Story Tokens you got for being beaten on that goal and use them to win:

Goal: Dr. Trinity clears his name and reputation
or maybe
Event: An imposter is revealed!
or even
Goal: ...but it was all part of my Master Plan!

Great post, Sydney.  It is so true, but it flies in the face of our egos as role players.  We all like to think we are mavericks, free spirits, etc., but the dirty little secret we all harbor is that we, like all the other people on the planet, care what other people think of us and what other people think of our efforts.  We prove this in the fact that we choose to express our creativity in groups instead of in solitude.  Writers write not only to write but to be read.  Role players role play not only to talk but to be heard.

One of the things I love about Capes is that it is so hard to feign interest while playing.  I'm not sure why this is true, but it is.  When people are impressed, it shows.  When they aren't, it shows too.  And the fact that you inevitably fail to be impressive with frequency makes it all the sweeter when you hit one out of the park.  The stark reality of your failures make your successes real as well.

Sindyr, I gotta say something, and Tony can tell me if I'm being out of line here, but I've been away from this forum for awhile and I come back and I'm greeted by a strange reply from you that seems to imply that my mode of play is "easier" than yours and that it doesn't have the "extra required thought" that yours does. Then I scroll down and you seem to be demanding that people not judge your opinions. Is passive-aggressively insinuating that my play is inferior to yours the way that you get people to respect your opinions? Because it's not working for me, and that's after being exposed to you for less than an hour.

I am reminded of a famous issue of Fantastic Four.

At the time, there had recently been an issue of X-Men in which Doctor Doom behaved in a way that the writer of Fantastic Four found to be out of character. Doctor Doom is a Fantastic Four villain, not an X-Men villain, so there is some sort of an ownership issue there.

So the writer of Fantastic Four wrote in a scene in which Doctor Doom is reviewing his Doombots. One of the Doombots is revealed to be the "Doctor Doom" from the X-Men issue and is summarily destroyed by Doctor Doom for not acting properly in that issue.

dunlaing wrote:
I am reminded of a famous issue of Fantastic Four.

At the time, there had recently been an issue of X-Men in which Doctor Doom behaved in a way that the writer of Fantastic Four found to be out of character. Doctor Doom is a Fantastic Four villain, not an X-Men villain, so there is some sort of an ownership issue there.

So the writer of Fantastic Four wrote in a scene in which Doctor Doom is reviewing his Doombots. One of the Doombots is revealed to be the "Doctor Doom" from the X-Men issue and is summarily destroyed by Doctor Doom for not acting properly in that issue.

Yes, but is this due to the comic book being like Capes, or Capes being like the comic book?

Please don't necromance for trivia, Fred.  If you'd like to split off a thread to discuss this topic, feel free, otherwise let the dead rest in peace.

Sorry.  I didn't check the date, I just trusted the "New" icon on the front page.  I'll look more closely in the future; evidently there may be a bug there.